Creative Ways People Have Earned Their Dream Jobs

If you want something bad enough, they say you’ll find any means possible to get it. This applies to job hunting just as much as anything else, and the people further down in this article are proof of that.

In the modern job market, it takes more than a decent employment history or a nice CV to get noticed – and for many roles (where there are upwards of 200 applicants) you need to show your personality, your skills and your knowledge in other ways.

So lean in and get your pencil and paper ready, because these people got seriously creative with their own applications—and you’ll no doubt be super inspired as you read through the incredible lengths they went to in order to bag their own dream jobs.

Alec Brownstein’s Vanity Googling

Ever wondered how often other people Google their names? Well Alec Bronstein did – and used it to get him a hired. Brownstein bought Google adwords for the names of industry bigwigs like David Droga, Tony Granger and Ian Reichenthal—basically all the people he was hoping would notice him and give him a job. So, as a result of this jiggery-pokery that Alec concocted, his own CV and his own details popped up every time one of these big guys Googled their own names. Genius? Definitely. Did he get a job? Of course he did.

You can find out more about his job-hunting story here on this great YouTube clip that explains everything in more detail.

Chris Putnam hacking Facebook

Back in the days when Facebook was still only open to universities, Chris Putnam knew he wanted to be hired by them – so he set about proving his skill by hacking the very company he was hoping would eventually employ him. Facebook had just come to his campus and needed to see if any security issues or bugs were going to be an issue. Chris took this chance to grab their attention and created a piece of coding that made thousands of profiles looks like their competitor MySpace instead! Putman showed his skill by showing up his dream company – and exposing their weaknesses. Brave – but it worked!

Josh Butler’s eBay stunt

Josh Butler, 18, apparently sent out over 600 job applications with absolutely no luck before deciding to do something a little more creative. What did he do? Well, he auctioned himself off on the popular website eBay for $16K. The stunt in itself had thousands of social shares – which of course attracted some recruiters too. Josh had three offers off the back of this stunt – and has never looked back since! Just goes to prove that sometimes the smartest job hunting techniques can also be the most simple too!

Bennett Olson’s ‘hire me’ billboard

Bennett Olson decided he wanted a job, so he decided to market himself, to prove he could get the job (and do it well). He bought a huge billboard, and set it up for one day (that’s it!) and it cost him $300. He set it up with his web address and waited for the offers to roll in. The billboard attracted plenty of attention on social media and in the news papers too, which then lead to several impressive job offers. Of course, he wouldn’t have made this list if his billboard hadn’t lead to him getting hired for his dream job at a fantastic company. Because it did! When offering advice for people on the job hunt, Bennett’s advice is to be yourself, and concentrate on the assets you have and what makes you stand out.

The complaint letter

In 2008, one unlucky flyer with Virgin was so unimpressed with his in-flight food he wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek complaint letter to Richard Branson addressing the situation and highlighting just how the food could be improved. Needless to say, the letter went viral, and Richard Branson did indeed end up reading the letter himself. He was so impressed he offered the flyer a job. And not just any job – the official in-flight food taster at Virgin airlines.

Chris Spurlock’s CV Infographic

Chris Spurlock decided to redesign his CV as an infographic to make it stand out from the crowd, and it did just that. Chris decided to upload his new CV straight to Huffington Post where plenty of people saw it, and it started getting the site lots of traffic and social shares. Obviously, this didn’t go unnoticed by the people at Huffington Post, and they snapped Chris up for a job there as quick as they could. He now works as their Infographic Editor, doing his dream job full time. You can see his CV here, on his website.

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